Our AGM will occur at the end of our regular meeting. We ask our members to remain on the call. We will be approving the audited financial statements and confirming the auditor for the next year.
Friday, November 26, 2021 - VIRTUAL MEETING ONLY!
Guest Speaker: Karen Gosbee, Mental Health Advocate and Community Leader
Virtual Meeting Time: Members Segment Login Time: 12:00 Noon, Guests: 12:15pm to 1:15 PM -
Rotary Virtual Meeting via TEAMS! (Use LinkTree Link)
Topic: Mental Health: Why Doesn’t She Just Leave?
Host: Carolyn Purden, Chair of Indigenous Partnership Working Group
Karen Gosbee is an advocate and community leader for mental health in Calgary. Having been exposed to mental health and substance abuse both in her childhood and adult life, she has extensive lived experience. Ms. Gosbee and her three children lost their husband and father, George Gosbee, only 48 years of age at the time, to suicide in 2017. Before her husband’s death, Ms. Gosbee often felt hopeless and struggled to navigate the resources available to support her husband and family. After his death, she came forward for two reasons. First, to share the family story so others could identify with her situation and feel more comfortable sharing their own story. Second, to address the lack of resources and coordinated services in a time of need. Ms. Gosbee met with Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi with a plea to help align resources for the community and to address systemic and society failures for mental health and addiction in the city of Calgary. He agreed with her claims and saw this as a ten-year strategy similar to the city’s homeless strategy. In August 2018, he proposed a Notice of Motion to allocate $25 million over a five to ten-year plan for mental health and addiction. The mayor selected a team of Calgary based leaders to take part in Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership initiative in New York City during January 2019. On July 29, 2019 The City of Calgary Approved a Community Action on Mental Health and Addiction (CAMHA) and appointed a community-based stewardship group co-chaired by Karen Gosbee and Dr. Chris Eagle.
Karen, along with her children, established The Gosbee Family Foundation, a registered charitable organization that provides information, access and referral services to anyone experiencing mental health issues. She is the author of a best seller book, titled: A Perfect Nightmare: My Glittering Marriage and How It Almost Cost Me My Life.
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Past Meetings
Friday November 9th was another very successful hybrid meeting. And yes, affordable housing continues to be a major focus for The City of Toronto. Thank you Geoffrey for your How We Hobby segment.
Impact Reporter Bidor Ali, Geoffrey Johnson, Jayson Phelps, Speaker Ana Bailão, Prince Kumar, John Fortney and Cijay Shah
You can find the full meeting here linktr.ee/rotarytoronto as we are posting the recordings of our meetings.
Recording of Cocktails and Members Only segments are in Google Drive/All RCT Members.
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Another New Member - Wali Zia
Wali was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. He moved to Canada 10 years ago for school. He attended McGill University and graduated with an undergraduate BCom degree. Since then, he has completed a post-graduate program in big data analytics from York University and has also become a Certified Associate in Project Management and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Most recently, he completed a specialized MBA in Entrepreneurship and Technology from the University of Waterloo.
He currently works as a software consultant for Prophix while doing freelance event planning and providing private consulting services in Accounting and IT. He has experience in Real Estate, Financial Services, Non-Profit, Impact Investing, Start-ups, New Ventures, SaaS Companies, and has worked at the House of Commons as well.
His grandfather, Masood Ahmed Shaikh has been a long-time member of the Rotary Club of Pakistan and was one of the primary inspirations in him deciding to join the Rotary Club of Toronto. He is also a Member of the Rotaract Club of Toronto.
In his spare time, he plays a lot of sports, primarily soccer, loves to go biking, and is constantly learning new things.
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Share Some Warmth!
A 96 year old parishioner of Manor Road United Church has lovingly created 65 winter hats for Torontonians experiencing homelessness this winter. Show your Rotary spirit and donate a new or lightly- used winter jacket or coat to go with these beautiful hats and we'll give them to one of the downtown shelters in time for the cold weather.
Sistering women’s shelter has requested snow pants for women - could be used or new.
To arrange a drop off of a coat or jacket in the downtown area contact Lori Brazier; midtown contact Suzanne Boggild and uptown contact Daniel Massicotte.
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Holiday Hampers Parties - A great Success!
Paul Truelove's and Jackie Davies' guests at Paul's home.
Other wonderful hosts are Marcy Berg, Lori Brazier, Prince Kumar, Suzanne Seaquist and Jason Phelps, Don Bell, Khrystina McMillan and David Libby.
“Still Time to Donate”
IF you haven't been able to help out yet with our Holiday Hampers from the Daily Bread Food Bank, there is still time to make a contribution.
Simply go to Linktr.ee/Rotarytoronto and make your donation. Every $20 buys one hamper for a family. Help us support our community this holiday season.
And Then to Pack!
Saturday, December 11, 12 noon Toronto Daily Food Bank Warehouse,
191 New Toronto St., Etobicoke
We have 7 volunteers so far but could use another 7-10.
Contact Don Bell 416-805-4456 or donaldgbell@gmail.com
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Christmas Gift Packages
With Covid continuing to limit our ability to host large gatherings neither our Children's or Seniors parties will occur.
Seniors: A special shout-out to Mary Lach and Krystyna Benyak for coordinating delivery of special gifts to 200 seniors supported by our agencies in the Toronto core. And a thank you to the dozen drivers who have volunteered to make the deliveries.
Children:
The Holiday season is for children and for the second time in as many years your Rotary Club will not be hosting our Children’s with Disabilities Christmas/Holiday party… something that we have done for over 100 years! There is however a budget for this party and your Club board was hoping that club members might be able to put some presents together for children… Specifically children from Easter Seals, the Cancer Society and other charities who normally were invited to our party. The idea is that a group of club members could fill 40 to 50 bags with toys etc. which could then be delivered to specific children… Names to be supplied by the charities.
We need a “champion” to execute this idea as well as volunteers to help in getting toys, filling bags and delivering them.
If you are interested, would you please contact your Events Committee as soon as you can.
We would like at least some of our children to get their Santa Bag this year
The Club and Foundation work together to have an impact. Here is a recent example from one of the organizations…
Geneva Centre for Autism
The Geneva Centre, founded in 1974, serves 3000 families a year by offering development and delivery of clinical intervention programs and services for individuals living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Our mission is to empower individuals with ASD, and their families, to fully participate in their communities. We do this by providing direct support for families and individuals in the Greater Toronto Area and offering professional training to share best practices worldwide. Our current focus is supporting the autism community through the COVID-19 pandemic with the expansion of remote programs and services and a cohort model for limited programming in the Centre.
How You Made a Difference
Your donation helped GCA to keep children with autism engaged in learning and social development during the COVID-19 pandemic, through diverse and affordable remote programming options. In the summer of 2020, the Rotary Club of Toronto Charitable Foundation approved a $15,000 donation to Geneva Centre for Autism in support of our COVID-19 Response program, Keeping Kids Engaged at Home. The goal of this program was to provide access to recreational, social and therapeutic activities for children with autism, while school, respite and in-person programming was on hold. As anticipated, these programs provided a lifeline for families over the summer, and well into the fall, as we supported clients through the transition back to school, and the second wave of the pandemic. With your support, we far exceeded our goals for this project offering more subsidized programming, engaging more children and providing more support to families in our community.
Rotarian wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry!
This year the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to a Rotarian, Benjamin List from Germany!
List is a member of the Rotary Club in Mülheim and he recently sat down with #Rotary Magazine for a brief interview.
